The Defenders
by DiedInMarseilles
Summary: A picaresque novel, revealing the origin of the superhero "non-team" THE DEFENDERS.
1. Part One: 1

The kingdom of New Atlantis slept. A cool blue cast, emitting from its dome's elaborate light-rig, bathed alike the low rows of homes, the fledgling roofs of businesses, and the towering spires of the royal palace.

Since nightfall, the well-polished tiles of the royal chamber's floor were darkened by the constant horizontal shadow of its four-post bed. Now, cutting through this black horizon was the silhouette of a raising figure, who sat up slowly, steadily, rigidly, and remained erect like one who has not known sleep.

This figure turned his face toward the approximate moonlight, to where it came streaming in through the balcony door. Gliding to it without making a sound, he let his hand fall then rest on the latch, which he pushed open warily, trying, through concentration and deliberate action, to do so silently. He was able to subdue all but the first sharp, metallic click which seemed to echo endlessly in the surrounding stillness.

King Namor stepped onto the balcony and into the full light. He leaned forward to better the view of his kingdom, his powerful hands motionless upon the railing. His eyes and brow were kept blank as he scanned all before him—attempting not to reveal the festering darkness within his mind, making its presence known in the scars and worry-lines competing for boldness on the battlefield of his face. For some moments, he was lost in his vigil.

A voice then chimed slowly, lightly, and merrily behind him. "It's full tonight," it said.

Namor twisted his neck nonchalantly toward the direction of the newcomer. He saw, standing by the open balcony door, Namorita, her hand holding the latch, her lips drawn but creased at the corners into dimples, her yellow hair, still unbound for bed, buoyantly playfully in the current.

"What is?" he said.

"The moon," she said. "It's smiling down on us."

Namor cast his eyes past the lights and the dome, into the fathoms of waves overhead. "How can you tell?"

When no answer came, he looked again behind him. There Namorita gazed into the same darkness, bemused.

He turned his attention once more to the city below, sweeping over one roof then the next, down one lane then another. Thus absorbed, he seemed to forget all about his cousin's presence.

"It's still there," she said, softly. "Still peaceful, still growing. Atlantis is safe. Why worry?"

"Some cataclysm is brewing on the surface world, something that will endanger all of this."

"How can you tell?" she said, showing her age.

The king of New Atlantis only half smiled, with his eyes moving slowly away from her. Then, having seen all he needed to see from the balcony, he turned fully toward her. "You should be in bed."

"So should you," was her reply, but the king only silently placed a hand on her shoulder, escorting her back through his room. Mid-way to the door a pillared statue of Neptune divided their path between the bed route and armoire route. Namor navigated toward the bed side, causing Namorita to give him a passionate, awkward, terrified look, which he dodged by pressing harder on her shoulder, moving swifter toward the door, and turning his back on the bed.

The sound of the door opening bled into the sound of a transport pulling up to the palace. Namor ushered Namorita into the corridor distractedly, keeping one ear and half his attention on the sound outside.

"Good night," she said, lingering a second.

"Yes. Stay in bed this time," he said, closing the door before dashing back to the balcony.

A bubble-windowed transport idled by the stairs leading up to the palace's towering front portal. Namor, with his neck craned to watch it carefully, failed to move, to even blink an eye, in the hope of solving the mystery of its disturbance.

Seconds later, Keerg, hastily tying his outer tunic together as he walked, exited the palace, making his deliberate way to the transport. His rubbery lips, sagging beneath jowls, hung open as he huffed; his heavy-lidded eyes stared forward mostly, winking intermittently in long, sleeping-wishing blinks.

Before ducking under the bubble, Kreeg gave a look back at the palace. Namor took this time to straighten, and of course was spotted by the feverish senator. Keerg flashed the king a smile, bowing at the waist.

"I assure you, Liege," Keerg said, "that I am making a personal call. I have just received news that a friend is sick. I am on my way now to attend him. You don't believe me, my liege? You think, perhaps I am on my way to some conventicle, where I will plot a conspiracy against you, is that it? Your paranoia is too much! You may if you like, come down and check my transport, or the pockets in my tunic—it is your right to do so."

"The King of Atlantis does not go swimming off of balconies! Nor does he snoop into the lives of his subjects—nor does he give a second thought to old gregarious schemers. You are no worry of mine, Keerg."

"Of course, my liege, of course. But if I may speak frankly…I cannot wait until the wedding. When my son marries Namorita, I know you will have a better regard me—for then we will be family."

Keerg bowed again to the motionless Namor, then entered the transport which whisked him away in a swirl of bubbles.

When Keerg was out of sight, Namor felt his back hunch, his knees bend, his head grow heavy. He carried himself back into the chamber, back into the bed, and there, with his arm draped over his eyes, he dozed.

He dozed, that is, until a rumbling, deep enough to be felt in his chest, woke him. Because it sounded like it was coming from within the palace he lifted his arm, he opened an eye—he found the stillness unbroken, but the rumbling growing louder. He lifted his head just as the door, the walls, the roof all came crashing in on him in a great rush, a rush followed by the destructor itself—a giant blue whale. The Leviathan shattered the bed, sending Namor diving out of danger's way. Digging his hands like daggers into the titles normally underfoot, he struggled to hold on as first the door to then the balcony itself were broken down instantly into wreckage.

The whale calmly swam on, having left the entire top floor of the palace scalped.

Namor stood. He looked out from the ruin of the chamber, watching first, the shadow of a large piece of palace, then the abstraction itself, having been tossed by the whale, plummeting toward a nondescript Atlantean home. He pushed off the lack of balcony, racing it. Arriving before the dwarfing rubble, Namor, striking a statue-like figure above the house's roof, was unable to, even with his superior strength, ward off the collision. In fact, he was buried under the mass, the two crashing into the house with a cloud of dust and debris following.

Atlanteans from nearby houses poured into the streets. They approached the disaster with trepidation. Nothing for a breathless second stirred within. Then, erupting through what had been the house's front entrance, Namor appeared, carrying, under an arm, a young crying boy. The congregated Atlantean subjects stared, gasped, and reeled for a stupefied second, before falling to their knees, some lying completely prostrate, before their king.

"Rise!" said Namor, a command shot through with frustration. A scream from the palace called his attention away. He started his return there, throwing over his shoulder: "Dig! There might be more survivors." His subjects rose, stunned and bowing as they moved forward to their task.

Namor followed his ear, ringing with the familiar voice in anguish, to Namorita's room, the door to which Namor burst through, adding splinters to the floating plaster and the overturned furniture. Zartma, turning his head toward the king's entrance, held a squirming Namorita—her eyes closed, her hand clenched, her shoulders twisting—as if trying to subdue her. Taken by surprise, Zartma went limp as Namor took him by the throat. The king thrashed him twice before throwing him against the wall. Zartma fell to the floor unconscious.

"Are you hurt?" asked Namor.

Namorita turned from him, collapsing unto the floor beside the bed, hiding her face in the bedclothes.

Namor watched her sobbing shoulders, his eyes calculating, his eyes caressing every part of her frame. "Did he—try to take advantage of you?"

"Yes!" she cried. "He said no one would notice us, and we could do whatever we wanted to because we were basically married." She raised her head, still averted from her cousin. Her eyes opened, glowing with an unnatural green cast. She smiled maliciously. "Then he had his hand all over me."

His teeth grinding, Namor picked the still form of Zartma up from where it had fallen and, despite his opponent's inability to retaliate, struck him with one blow after another.

Up the corridor and into the room came the visored royal guard. With their spears drawn, they positioned themselves—the defense holding back, obstructing the egress; the offense moving forward in a straight line into the room, then fanning out.

As if waking, Namor's paused his actions upon seeing his guard enter. His eyes cleared, and his face lost some of its tautness. He released Zartma, who floated lifeless before him.

Behind the royal guard, palace attendants now gathered. One gawking cook, behind the others—thus out of sight, where no one saw her green glowing eyes—shrieked, escaping swiftly into the street where she chanted, at the top of her voice and with her eyes emotionally closed: "Murder! Murder! There's been a murder in the palace!"

On-lookers arrived—the palace was besieged by the curious. Making their difficult way through these were two voices—loud, admonishing, imperial, calling for a path to be made, commanding the others to step aside. Krang and Noxas emerged eventually from the crowd, their tunics tied, their eyes wide, their heads held attentively high, unlike the bedraggled other, who were tousled by sleep and confused by the commotion.

"Who came screaming into the streets, shouting murder?" Krang asked, his bald head catching the diminished moonlight with every turn. "Where is she?"

"Perhaps the king can answer for her," said Noxas, his braided bear trembling as he spoke.

The crowd mocked the senators' search, worriedly looking for Namor here and there.

The king himself, at last, exited the palace by the grand front steps, evenly, stately, confidently. "The woman's cries are true," he said in his cold, hard voice.

Two guards exited the palace just then, filing past Namor, and holding, between them, the stretcher upon which were lain the remains of Zartma. Whatever groping, disheveled thoughts the crowd had, suddenly cleared, as all eyes, especially those of Krang and Noxas, followed, with morbid fascination and passionate disbelief, the unhurried procession of the body.

The first to free themselves from the hold the horror of the scene had seized the crowd with, was Krang and Noxas, each exuding a wordless blame while they collected their disbursed thoughts.

"Is this your doing, Namor?" asked Krang.

"Your _king_ has acted as any king would—I have dealt with a traitor, a traitor who was found attacking a member of the royal family."

"This is beyond belief," said Noxas, turning is head away in disgust.

"You will be held accountable for this, Namor," said Krang. "This _crime_ shall not—"

"Are you challenging your king, senator?" said Namor. "Do I have to remind you that any action of the king's in the defense of his kingdom cannot be considered unlawful."

The crowd parted again during Namor speech, revealing Keerg. Anxiety now held open the eyes that before wanted so dearly to close. He moved solemnly forward, the bluntness of his steps increasing as he approach his fallen scion. The guard lowered the stretcher. Keerg followed it to the ground, kneeling before its heavy cargo.

A pitying hush fell over the audience, Namor included—with all other voices muted, Keerg's sobbing was heard in greater, more grating, more sickening relief.

"And this is _not_ a crime?" said Krang, his voice moist and quiet. He turned quickly, recklessly, to the crowd, addressing them with the same question: "I ask _you_, Atlanteans, is this a crime or is it not?"

"This is not a hearing!" said Namor, his wrath never more articulate. "And woe to him who tries to turn it into one!" He continued in a more intimate, a sharper, a more deadly voice, lowered and aimed at Krang alone: "How dare you even _try_ to turn my subjects against me."

To which Krang, shamefacedly, did not reply.

"No one here sees," said Namor to his entire kingdom, "the real crime and the ever present danger…of the surface-men! What have they done up there to turn one of our own animals against us? Are you not at all eager to cease whatever vile plotting is underway there before more destruction comes? I will go, then, to the surface world to investigate and put a stop to these plans."

"You would leave now," said Krang, gesturing to the pitiable scene before him, "_now_, with what has just transpired?"

"I was not asking counsel of you, senator. I have no qualms disbanding the senate here and now—sending you, Krang, home as a mere peasant—if I hear anyone else giving me advice when I have asked for none!" Namor looked the meek crowd over for a chilling second. "I shall go to the surface world, leaving Namorita, who is my next in kin, upon the throne. When you see me next, my Atlanteans, you will know that your future peace has been preserved. Imperious Rex!"

Members of the crowd, through strained throats, echoed this call to arm as the Atlantean king soared into the swirling sky and away through the shattered dome.

While these few smiled nervously, turning their king's reassurance over in their minds, others, like the senators, looked sternly but silently into their neighbors eyes, while still others, weighed by the situation, bowed their heads in humble prayer to Neptune for the strength to survive these trying times.

There was nothing mixed, however, about the expression on Namorita's face, deeply hidden in the shadow of the palace's front columns. She grinned—she flashed set teeth—her eyes glowed green eerily.


	2. Part One: 2

The face of Manhattan Bay was tinged gray with moonlight, splashed by the yellow of streetlamps, and still—disturbed only by Namor's smooth surfacing. He appeared—head first, then shoulders, then bare chest—as if the waters were carrying him upward. As his winged feet left the surface, he leapt up, pushing off of it—the water was already ringless and clam again.

The power of that jump sent him up over concrete, over railings, and unto the street, from where—moving steadily from the glare of streetlamps to the shadows they could not penetrate, and back into the light again—he began his investigations.

He marched as a solider, but where to he could not say. Nothing here seemed out of the ordinary, and the farther he progressed the more his ears burned with the gasps, the sighs, the disappointments, and the detestations expressed by the humans whom he passed. Their continuous judgments and deprecations only pressed the question "Why?" harder into his thoughts—Why had he come here? Why visit again these animals? Why had he assumed the responsibility of this one-man war?

He gave no outward sign that his spirit was flagging as he moved around one corner, then another. His course was always onward—marching—never slacking, but feeling as though the concrete of the sidewalk was miring him.

His mind vacillated with the thought of returning to his kingdom and the thought of trudging forward, with the former motivating the latter. The human world continued on as the backdrop to his wanderings, but it became less and less important to him, until it was almost out of his mind.

During this fading, Namor saw two figures on the sidewalk ahead of him involved in a drama. There was no one else in audience. This filled Namor with a sense of duty, thus he strove to interfere. His steps grew louder. His heart beat faster. He clinched his teeth. But as he came close enough to discern the personae for who they were, he paused. There was not a defeated woman kneeling upon the ground, cowering before a male tormentor—the roles, instead, were reversed from Namor's expectations. The ruling woman, then, fled from her victim with, Namor swore, a smile on her face, although her eyes were sealed closed as if crying. The scene augmented the gossamer already veiling Namor's thoughts. The only weak conclusion he kept coming to and departing from, for this conclusion was far from satisfying, was that the doings of the surface-dwellers could never be fully comprehended.

Anything coming around the next corner would have knocked Namor down in his wondering state. The thing that he met with around the next corner, though, was a sedan, its grill seen only for a second at eye level, and the force behind it enough to send Namor flying backward through a brick wall of a brownstone. He rose to his feet again, but never to his full height—he remained sturdy, with his knees locked, his shoulders spread, his fists out-flung, and his eyes squinting, searching.

Thus he dodged the next car flung his way with ease, making progress to the middle of the block where he saw, but could not believe what he saw, the Avenger known as the Scarlet Witch. Her cape fluttered behind her as she floated just above the ground, floated as if disdainful of the earth. She twirled in one direction then another, targeting a growing number of on-lookers. Seeing this superior stance of hers affected Namor, who, momentarily, checked his battle-ready posture. But that which paralyzed him completely with curiosity, wonder, and a vague dread were her glowing-green eyes.

"You!" the Witch called out, extending a finger to a man who, being spoken to by the Witch's unearthly voice, which seemed to be glowing and superior as well, froze him where he stood. "You, mortal! You dare look your better in the eye?" The man backed away, shaking his head, but, with his eyes well rounded thanks to a survival reflex, still did not take his gaze away. "You stare, but you will not challenge me? You insult me further with your cowardice!" Advancing, the Witch now corralled her quarry to a spot directly beneath a restaurant's neon sign. "Then, mortal, have at thee!" She shot a hex blast from her hands which hit, with bulls-eye accuracy, the sign's supports, without which it toppled over toward the pavement where the frightened man still stood.

The sign, though, never reached the ground, for Namor caught it mid-air, tossing it aggressively aside into the vacant street.

The Scarlet Witch studied him, grinning.

In that silent second, Namor heard, wishing he could have blocked out such cries, the anger of motorists now trapped because of the fight, and, seeing only Namor and the Scarlet Witch squaring off without the events that brought them to this stand-still, blamed Namor for the impeding chaos and destruction.

Namor broke the silence first: "I do not care to fight a girl—"

"Arrogant male!" the Witch replied, doubling her ferocity. "You will not be spared!"

The Scarlet Witch served two hex blasts in rapid-fire succession, which Namor dexterously evaded. Doing so saved Namor the ignominy of laying violent hands on a woman, which his fierce sense of honor would not yet allow—but such an evasion gave the Witch an opportunity to move in closer to her opponent, close enough to land a magic-insisted uppercut, one that sent the Atlantean king crashing through a storefront window.

He flew to his feet again, pulling, as he faced the Witch, a parking meter from the concrete with which a batted away three more blasts, all while keeping his eyes murderously locked on hers. Pursuing her as she inched backwards, Namor sensed a new threat from behind. Turning to it with the parking meter, he found his weapon useless, for what flew at him from behind was yet another vehicle. He quickly flung away the meter, grasping the car in two widely-stretched arms. He slowed its movements, and set it down again to follow the Witch. The second he met her eyes she brought around him another device she had at the ready there in the city. The cold, rusted iron of a fire-escape coiled snake-like around Namor, pinning, first, his arms to his side, then, as the iron continued to wound round him like a mechanical cocoon, pinned him bodily and helplessly to the ground.

"Where is your chauvinism now?" said the Scarlet Witch, standing grandly over her captive. "All of your so-called superior strength, and here you are, trapped. This is your exemplar, male-kind," she now said in a raised voice, addressing all who could listen. "Your inevitable end is in chains."

Working speedily but silently, Namor, slipping out one then another appendage, freed himself. He burst from the Witch's cage, flying toward her with his teeth grinding, his fist pulled back, and hell in his eyes. The Scarlet Witch, turning from her jibs smirking, was about to be taken by surprise. Namor saw as much: he saw her come into range; he saw the smirk twitch; he saw himself reflected in her eyes. But as soon as he saw all this, time froze. The scene faded away into black, leaving Namor conscious of his suspended state in a void. There was nothing—no thing and no one—to which he could direct his hate, no target his revenge-seeking hands could hit. He was truly alone with his own thinking—and felt, for this first and only time in his existence, terror.

This nascent feeling ended when a vaporous mass thickened before him. Through it, a face soon came into relief, looking out. Before Namor could distinguish a single feature, though, he thrust out his animosity at it like one would a hand at a stranger. The vapors continued to swirl, then part, curtain-like, slowly, revealing the elegant, aging feature of Doctor Strange. For a pregnant second, the haunted eyes of the Sorcerer Supreme stared dreamily at Namor, who, not knowing whether he was alive or dead, calculated a plan of attack against the bodiless entity before him, if the void which suspended him were to ever relinquish its hold.

"Namor, the Submariner, this is Stephen Strange. I mean no disrespect for the situation I've put you in. It's actually out of my respect that I'm warning you…you won't be able to hurt Wanda…I mean, the Scarlett Witch."

"_I_," said Namor, "will decide that."

"No," said Doctor Strange sadly, "I mean, I'm working a protection spell in her favor, your attacks will go right through her."

"Why are you two doing this?"

"I can't answer for her. I'm blocks away in the Village, where I felt the tremors of…some kind of other worldly anguish. I tried to enter the mind of the tortured person, when I felt Wanda's presence. She was a…student of mine, a long time ago now, so I know her presence well. As I said, I felt it, but I couldn't communicate with it. It was as though she was slipping further and further away, while the anguish grew in intensity."

Impatiently, Namor asked: "What does this all mean?"

To which Strange replied, pensively: "I still don't know. I'm trying to find a way into her mind, maybe then I can sedate her."

"Why have you not done so yet?"

"I'm spreading myself too thin, trying to protect her, the by-standers, _and_ breach this… usurping presence. If you could draw her fire—"

"I am to suffer this indignation, then you ask a favor?"

"You don't understand Wanda's powers. She could work untold destruction here…_and_ in your kingdom. Luckily for us—"

"_Us_?"

"Yes…luckily for us, this usurper doesn't know who it's manipulating, or there would be millions dead in the blink of an eye!"

"Very well. For the sake of my kingdom, I deign to shoulder this responsibility. Release me, and I will defend your race."

"Well…thank you, your majesty!"

As the floating face once again dissipating into a wavering abstraction, Namor's indignation rose, considering only whether or not Doctor Strange was being sincere when speaking to him, or sarcastic.

The scene before Narom was changing again—black was giving way to gray. His mind refocused on the battle at hand, soon to recommence—but never did he forget an insult, every one of which he kept close by, always within reach of his consciousness—he would deal with Doctor Strange, in time. The reality of the New York street and the Scarlet Witch and the many bystanders he was now resigned to protect, meanwhile, gradually appeared, as if Namor were waking. Before it was set again in motion, Namor noticed that around his fists an aura shined, the same yellow vapors that Strange's face bore. He had mere seconds to reflect upon this before gravity pulled at him again, the street sounds and gasping voices pricked his pointed ears again, and the slightly bitter taste of air slapped his palate again. His fight resumed.

His aim was true when he leapt for the Witch, breaking free of the twisted iron prison she hoped to enslave him in. Minutes and variegated thoughts had passed—but these were solely his. Now, he was poised and again heading straight for his target, his fist steady. The blow would have knocked her unconscious had it connected, which it should have. Instead, Namor passed through the Witch, and the ground, never in his sights though all he could see now, dealt the blow. Smarting, he stood, swinging left and right—his fists as good as ghosts.

"Men and their…_machismo_!" said the Witch, who then turned away from Namor, her arms raised, ready to cast a hex blast at whatever man she happened to spy.

Just then, over her, so that it was seen only by Namor, the astral form of Doctor Strange swam out from a portal of yellow and black swirls. Namor looked it in the eye, an eye that pleaded with him tacitly to carry out his part in the sorcerer's plan. Then, without another shared look, the form brought its legs in under itself, and the Doctor—his thumbs and forefingers together, his wrists resting lightly atop his knees, his lips working mutely—began his spell.

Namor charged with a burning speed even he didn't think he was capable of, racing to carry away two bystanders trembling in the hex blast's course. Once they were safe, he looked to the Scarlet Witch. He followed her gaze as she hunted another potential victim. Again, Namor pushed himself until his muscles were ablaze to save the next innocent the Witch threatened. This time, however, his goal was too far away for him to reach in time. He was forced to change his plan, and all that came to him was to take the brunt of the blast himself, which he did, sinking to a knee as his skin smoked and he shook all over with pain. "Damn you, Strange…_hurry_!" he thought, his eyes returning to the delighted Witch.

Neither did she remove her demented look from his eyes, as she stalked closer and closer to him. She grinned, raising her arms.

Namor rose, tense. He braced himself however he could: his nails cut into his palms; his toes dug into the pavement; his gums bled from the aggressive meeting of tooth on tooth. His eyelids fell heavily, weighted with the thought that the king of Atlantis was making his last stand. As black blocked out Namor's sight, a yellow smoke was enveloping the Scarlet Witch.

For an eternity within a second all was uncomfortably still.


	3. Part One: 3

Namor felt a hammering of excess strain at his temples, thus he knew that he was still alive. He opened his eyes wide, taking in a scene far removed from the one he had left, though how he left it he could not say. The cities of the surface-world were not Atlantean, a point which Namor remarked upon, sometimes explicitly, as he moved through them—but they were not unknown to him. Where he was now, amongst the shadows created by a circular swirling emblem over the one large window in the room, defied comparisons, for it was unlike anything Namor had even seen before. There were urns topped with flickering flames, there were tall candles flanking ancient books, themselves elevated on pedestals, and there were eyes—odd, alien, idol eyes peering out at the Atlantean king here and there—like novel stars set in an unknown night.

A movement of limbs caught his attention. He looked warily to it, knowing as he saw Doctor Strange in the flesh that it was somehow the sorcerer's doing that he was now where he was. Strange was busy wrangling the arms of the Scarlet Witch, who stood, but barely, swaying, like a shot animal, moribund but refusing against all to be captured. This task of Strange's seemed manageable enough, yet it remained something he could not master—his arms moved wearily as if underwater, and his aim was poor, his hands always arriving at the place where the Witch's arm had just left. Namor, making his way over to these two from some feet away, noticed Strange's fatigue plainly in the lined face, the ringed eyes, the drooping cheeks, all presented in stark contrast to the tall, erect points of the his cloak and the imperial flow of blue cloth he was costumed in.

The Scarlet Witch's writhing arms increased their flow. Now moving over with urgency, Namor saw her eyes twitch, and, in order to defuse another painful round of taking blows, laid the Witch down on the floor with hurried care.

Bending over her, Strange closed his eyes. He ran a hand, the two middle fingers folded into the palm, over her face, relaxing it. Next, he slowly removed the pointed headpiece she wore, loosening, as he did so, her brown bound curls, which fell and fanned out on either side of a face that slept so peacefully that Namor was hard pressed to find the maliciousness of his former adversary in the innocence with which it beamed.

"Is she out?" Namor asked.

Strange first sighed, prolonging his explanation. "She's spellbound, but I don't know for how long. As soon as my strength returns, we'll have to act quickly."

These words rippled through Namor's body, pumping blood into his tensing muscles. Work for Namor meant, of course, physical exertion. He did not nor could not understand why Doctor Strange rose only to light more candles and light incense at several, what looked like, altars behind which were either masks bearing, to Namor's conservative tastes, hideous aspects, or else undecipherable words, if that was what they were, painted on yellowing scrolls which he could see now that there was more light penetrating the darkness.

Namor found his stored energies released in a twisting search he made of the room, not as one marveling, but as one in desperate need of finding something beautiful, something comforting, something recognizable amongst the frighteningly exotic.

Doctor Strange, having completed his lighting task, and having taken a breathful second to inhale and enjoy the clouds of sandalwood now heavy in the air, rejoined Namor, completely at ease where his guest was wound tightly.

"I welcome you to my Sanctum Sanctorum," said Strange. "All these artifacts you see are trophies of a sort, the physical remembrances of battles fought and won. I wish we had the time, I could tell you the story behind each one." Strange then returned to the Scarlet Witch's side, lowering himself into a lotus position with a moan.

"Of course," he continued, "some of the most important battles have no trophies to commemorate them. Life simply goes on, while no one is the wiser—but you. The name Dormmamu probably doesn't mean anything to you?" he asked, pausing and looking to Namor who continued his restless inattentiveness. "Well, he was a force that threatened life in many different dimensions. Through great pains and sacrifice, I cast the Dread One into the Void Between Dimensions—and yet I have nothing to show for it. Imagine overcoming the obstacles around Neptune's Trident, without winning the Trident itself!"

Namor turned violently to Doctor Strange. "You have been spying on me!" he said.

Doctor Strange's reply was an uplifted hand, which eventually found its way over his eyes. He took a long breath before admitting: "It's true I look into many realms, trying to avoid disaster where I can. If I have ever peered into Atlantis, it was only to observe a potential threat. It is no different then the attention you give my world. You're here because you're prying into our affairs."

Namor's loud huff inaugurated a period of silence, which was broken by the louder entrance of Rintrah, Doctor Strange's minotaur assistant. He opened a door facing the window, which Namor, hemmed in, as he was, by such oddities, had failed to notice, carrying a steaming china cup and bowl of sugar upon a tray. Now that the silence was wounded with the noises of everyday life, Doctor Strange performed its death stroke, addressing Namor: "As if catastrophe was _your_ problem alone, or _my _problem alone—the defense of life is really _our _problem, jointly. We heroes don't see boundaries."

While Strange mixed his tea, Namor said not a word. He did, however, watch Rintrah intensely, speaking volumes with his haughty looks, and turning his head, all but his narrowed eyes, away from the minotaur the closer he came.

"Allow me to introduce you," said Strange. "This is my servant—"

"Protégé," said Rintrah quickly.

"…Rintrah."

"Hello," said Rintrah to Namor, with natural congeniality. The furred hand he offered hovered unpartnered midair.

"If she is an Avenger," said Namor, as if Rintrah were absent, "then why haven't they tried to claim their own?"

"I don't know the answer to that," said Strange, holding the tea before his lips. "I also don't think the Avengers know what's going on, or even how to deal with _this_. They mean well, of course, but—"

Strange finished this thought with an inarticulate sip of tea. Even without its ending, Namor felt, for the first time, something of a kinship with Doctor Strange, if not as a friend, then as someone else who was as distrustful, even critical, of the world's premier superhero team.

"It's too hot," said Strange, softly to himself. The worry this caused Rintrah was written on his face. Such worry then turned bitter when Rintrah watched Namor, nonchalantly, flick the cup still in Strange's hand. "Try it now," said the Atlantean.

To Doctor Strange's amazement the tea he now tried for a second time was the perfect temperature for drinking. "Remember, Doctor," said Namor, "what you can do with the mind, _I_ can do with water."

While Strange finished his drink, Rintrah exited, mocking Namor's words and posture with a mute movement of his lips and a scrunching of his wet, black, bovine nose. Upon the draining of the cup, Strange reached up into the air, in the absence of a flat surface, and let the cup rest there, which it did as stationary as if it had been set down on something stable. His hands now free, he turned toward the sleeping Scarlet Witch. "I'm strong enough to make the journey into her mind," he said.

"Then there is nothing more for me to do here," said Namor by way of reply, making a motion to leave.

"You must stay," said Strange, alarmed.

"My world is being threatened, and you want me to stay here and watch your…séance?"

"You've seen how this psychic takeover can result in very physical confrontations. While my astral form leaves this plain, my body will remain here unprotected—"

"I am to act as your body guard now!"

"You're to act as this world's defender. This rescue cannot be done without my finesse _and_ your strength. Namor, you are needed here."

Namor agreed with the slightest nod.

Strange's long, sonorous incantations followed, a long, timeless period in which Namor began to think over the events of the last twenty four hours—events enough to fill a week!—and to feel exceedingly exhausted from all that had already happened. At a point when Namor's mind, grown so chaotic it was clear, had wandered away from Strange and his incomprehensible domicile, Namor saw an aura surround Strange, an aura of far more intensity than Namor had before witnessed, a golden aura that made Namor think, though his common sense argued against it—desperately, for it was on the losing side—that it was a new sun which rose before him. This same dawning, Namor saw, had spread—it surrounded the head of the Scarlet Witch as well.


End file.
